Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9308010212
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VIJAY JOSHI ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: FIROZABAD, INDIA LENGTH: Medium
Barefoot workers hurry across a floor littered with glass shards, carrying lumps of molten glass stuck to metal poles.
Many of the workers are children as young as 6.
Firozabad, a dusty town south of New Delhi not far from the Taj Mahal, is the center of India's glass industry. Its factories, with annual sales of about $16 million, make dinnerware, lamps and bangles, the brightly colored arm bracelets worn by many Indian women.
With 50,000 children working in 300 factories, Firozabad is a microcosm of the child servitude rampant on the Indian subcontinent. For many youngsters, childhood does not mean school and games, but long hours of labor.
In India, where the annual per capita income is the equivalent of $360, nearly one in three people earns too little to eat more than once a day.
"I like to work because I get money," said Gul Sher, an 8-year-old who earns 35 rupees (about $1) for a nine-hour day. "I don't want to go to school because the teachers can't give me any money."
Closer questioning revealed that his father was unemployed and spent what little money he could get on drink. Gul Sher has two younger brothers, a sister and mother to support.
A bellowing foreman does not allow Gul Sher or any of the 30 other children and 60 adults in the factory to rest. The children eat lunch as they carry their glowing loads to adult artisans, who are paid 90 to 300 rupees a day.
Even with only half the ovens working, the temperature is 120 degrees.
"If all eight were burning, you wouldn't be able to stand one minute here," said Kamal Prakash, 10, who started working this year to pay a family debt.
Continuous exposure to such heat often leads to dehydration and heat exhaustion.
A social activist, Deeksha Nagar, said in a report to UNICEF that the life expectancy of a child worker in a glass factory is half India's norm of 59 years. She said nearly all the children were likely to contract tuberculosis.
by CNB